Dudley D. Watkins Archives - Robot 6 @ Comic Book Resources

Manga | Eiichiro Oda’s hit pirate adventure One Piece has sold 130.15 million copies in Japan since 2009, the year that market research firm Oricon began reporting book sales. The series, which debuted in 1997, has 72 volumes — a total of 300 million copies — in print. [Anime News Network]

Events | We relay a lot of stories in this space about cartoonists being suppressed abroad, so it’s heartening to see a country where conditions have improved: Next week, there will be an exhibit of cartoons in Myanmar, as part of the Tazaungdaing festival. The Tazaungdaing comics show is a longtime tradition that was shut down in 1997 under pressure from the government but was resurrected in 2011 when censorship laws loosened. The exhibit takes place on a street named for U Ba Gyan, who was a prominent cartoonist in the 1930s; he used to exhibit his cartoons by putting them on lanterns around his house, to escape official censors. [Myanmar Times]